Original lesson: Alternate Picking Workout #2 by Darius Wave

Hi GMC! I have to admit that the last lesson was a bit hard on my ego, I knew my take wasn't great but I worked very hard on it and I didn't expect that it was THIS bad :/ Anyway, you're right of course and that's part of the journey! Thank you for all your advice and for being that benevolent, I'll try to build up something solid from now, piece by piece, instead of trying things that are way over my head. I hope that this take is ok!

Hi Sack!

I don't think that this is a bad take at all! I can notice that you've been working really hard, and there are many positive things happening here: cleanness, timing, hands sync. These are very important elements!

The first thing that I would improve here is tone. I think that you added too much reverb or maybe delay, and I would also add some more presence (and treble) to give your tone more definition.

Your playing is good as I've said, but sometimes I feel that your left hand is not completely comfortable with some lines and vibrato. The problem appears when you need to play stretches, and you use a more "classical" hand position. Be sure to use your left hand thumb to help the fret fingers press correctly.

It's also recommendable to use your 3rd finger to help 4th one when doing vibrato. (for example at 00:59).

Ok mate, I'll give you an 8!

Very nice!

This is well within your range and you display good control here.

For me- the absolute biggest take away from this is that you need a more relaxed left hand. To achieve this you will need to experiment with your angle and thumb position.

You will also need to think more actively about applying a minimum amount of left hand finger pressure. The idea is to try softening your touch until the note can no longer be heard, then add just enough pressure so that the note is ringing again. Now you have found the sweet spot applying just enough left hand pressure. This cannot be done when playing up to tempo - so be sure to spend lots of time on the slow tempos to get everything right.

What are the advantages of relaxed hands?

* better hand sync (= better tone!!)
* allows for much higher speeds
* avoid injury/fatigue
* allows for a more flexible technique in general

Very well done, you get an 8 from me!

First off well done on just memorizing this entire piece and then playing it all the way through. I can hear the work involved as you play. You've spent time on this and it shows. Well done. I won't waste time repeating what's been said here but I would mention that your vibrato in some parts does seem a pinch tepid. Especially when using one finger. There is a technique that may help with this. Good vibrato starts small and gets wider as it goes and sometimes needs a good bit of finger wag. Sometimes it's very hard to do this while the thumb is still touching the neck and you've only got one finger to use for vibrato. You can simply let go of the neck entirely and use the single finger for vibrato by moving the entire hand which leverages the weight of the hand against the string resulting in more power available. This is a video I did a while back where I have several single finger vibrato bits so it might be worth a look. I really enjoyed your playing here. it's precise, it's on spot on, and it's got energy. Solid 8 from me!!

Hey there!

Yes - it now visible that you taken some honest time to prepare the lesson descently.

As Gabriel mentioned - you tone setup may not be perfect for this one because it creates some kind of blurr and some details get lost in the mix.

From what I can hear refering to this mix you overall control of timing and tone of each note is descent. There are just a several spots where:

1. A not is not perfectly fretted
2. Unwanted strings noise occur
3. Not rings while it shoud not overlay upcoming note (open g string)
4. A few end notes of patterns are sacrificed for teh sake of position shift

Now things like vibrato and trills are not focus of this lesson but just to notice - watch out for unwanted strings. When you make a trill, your index finger could touch the string above with it's tip.

It is clearly visible you focus on things and overall take is quite solid besides these few minor issues. Well done

Pass: 8